A former Brasenose College student lost his claim for £1 million after failing to score high marks allegedly due to inadequate teaching of a topic related to Indian history.

A former Brasenose College student lost his claim for £1 million after failing to score high marks allegedly due to inadequate teaching of a topic related to Indian history. In a one of its kind case, Faiz Siddiqui had sued Oxford University after he failed to secure high scores. The High Court on Wednesday dismissed £1 million claim of the student. Siddiqui had graduated in 2000 but claimed that he was not admitted to Harvard University for higher studies because of his low scores. He further said that this was the reason which depressed him and he also failed perform well in his law career. Faiz Siddiqui had sued the varsity after 17 years, last November claiming that he received “inadequate” teaching on his specialist course on Indian imperial history, which led to him to get low scores back in 2000 that compromised his earnings in the job market.

On his part, the judge dismissed the case this week by saying that he 39- year-old may have “simply coasted” during his course and offered him “sympathy and understanding”. “It is to be hoped that he can re-focus, perhaps lower his expectations at least for the time being and start using his undoubted intelligence to create a worthwhile future for himself,” Justice Foskett said in his ruling. Lawyers for Siddiqui, who studied modern history had argued that the second-class degree meant a loss of earnings in his future career as a lawyer, PTI reported. Though he agreed to the fact that the claimant might have suffered severe depression, but then he also accepted that this cannot be attributed to his result. The judge also found out that there were other reasons behind his bouts of depression to explain his failure to hold down various jobs he had with leading legal and accountancy firms in the UK. In one of the instances, his employer had blamed him of poor behaviour, rudeness and lack of IT skills. He said that it was possible that Siddiqui simply got over-anxious during the examination process.